


Lights Out

by ectoBisexual



Series: Burn Your Fire for No Witness [2]
Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Mental Health Issues, Kissing in the Rain, Living Together, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-07
Updated: 2016-02-07
Packaged: 2018-05-18 06:47:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5902417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ectoBisexual/pseuds/ectoBisexual
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Searching for peace is like searching for a lighthouse in a stormy sea. One good thought, the thought of Chloe, is what's been pulling her to shore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lights Out

 They walk out together to pick the pizza up at 8.15 at night, because they can't afford delivery. It'll be a while before Max's parents send her money again; she could get a job, but that would mean cutting back on classes, and she wants to get her degree done as soon as possible. Chloe has a steady gig running errands for a guy named Rich, some old friend of Frank's. She swears it isn't a drug but it probably is, knowing her. 

Presently she walks beside Max swinging her arms and gushing on about the sky. Max wants to take a picture of it-- her fingers itch, surging for the impulse, the shutter sound and the slow slow turn of the paint-swatch mirage rolling above them.

"It's like a gradient painting. Crazy shit, Max. How are you not going wild with your camera right now? If I was a photographer I'd be pissing myself."

 _You're an artist,_ Max almost says, but she doesn't. "I'm looking," she offers. Her eyes are trained on Chloe. The gentle slope of her shoulders, sunburnt; pale freckles like haphazard constellations. 

"Look, it's grey over there!"

"Means it's going to rain." Max dares a glance up, at the orange and pink that dissolves itself into a pool of grey like a room full of smokers. Chloe still has her head tipped back, exposing the slender curve of her throat. Sweat beads along her tattoo. "Look, Max."

"I am looking," she answers. Chloe tips her head down to grin, lazy, that coquettish and daring curve to her mouth that Max can only describe as  _dangerous._

"You are a  _sap,_ Caulfield."

Max wrinkles her nose. "Don't call me that.  _Price._ "

Chloe laughs out loud at this, halcyon and musical.

"Ha. Does kinda sound like we're strangers. Which is weird, considering I've had my tongue in your--"

"If we don't hurry, it's gonna rain on us," Max interrupts, thinking of her sweater, the way it will itch against her skin if it gets wet. One of the dogs pulls hard against the lead. Max pulls with it, rolling her eyes when Chloe snickers like a child.

The pizza place is closing up when they get there and serves them their dinner from where it's been getting cold on the counter, the boxes sweating. Max takes them both and secures her hand in Chloe's, eager to get home and escape the evening chill.

The sun is setting. It makes Max think of city lights, of Arcadia Bay, of fire and dull explosions and the beach at high tide. She walks with one hand clasped in Chloe's, the dogs pulling on their leads with the urgency to get home. Max gets it.

"He's such an idiot," Chloe remarks fondly, getting it too; she licks her lips, blows a strand of hair from her face.

"You're such an idiot," Max counters. She wants to kiss her. She loves the way the sunset casts shadows and lights Chloe's skin a warm pink. Everything is this colour, the colour of peaches, from the bony knobs of her wrists to her angular face, cast down and peaceful because she must be thinking of home in a way that doesn't hurt. 

Some days they walk like zombies and can't stand to be in the same room without touching, side by side in mechanical gestures. Some days one of them will say something like, "remember the way Joyce would pour syrup over our eggs for us when we were kids?" "Remember the time we shot bottles at the junkyard?" The only obstacles ahead of them those days are deciding what to do for dinner, if they're not too lazy both to cook; who should do the dishes, walk the dogs; how much pressure Max can apply with her fingertips without breaking Chloe like porcelain.

They're about halfway home when it starts to rain on them. They stop for ice-cream and Max watches the sky open up from the entrance of the store, the heavens pouring out like words from a strained and gaping mouth. Chloe  _tsk_ s at the weather outside when they have to start walking again, the sky darkening. Neither of them thought to bring an umbrella. The dogs are fussing over puddles. 

Max gives up and tucks the pizza boxes under her shirt so that they don't get wet. The cardboard burns her skin and she begins to sweat beneath her bra.  Chloe begins to laugh, the roar of it over the roar of the falling rain, and shakes her hair free so that droplets fling everywhere. On Max, on the damp earth.

She shouts that Chloe's roots are coming in, they should dye it again. Chloe doesn't hear so she shouts again. The dogs hurry and pull and give up, too, huddling and shivering as the rain beats down on them. Max can feel her shirt soaking through, her hair clinging damply to her cheeks. Chloe shouts for her to stop walking, and she obeys.

They kiss in the middle of the rainstorm. Max feels like elation condensed in human form, sighs against her girlfriend's lips like the sea and the rain's tired hum. Her lips move wetly against Chloe's and when she opens her mouth she tastes rainwater against her tongue. When Chloe pulls back her hair is in her eyes and she's grinning like the devil. Her hot hand burns a hole in Max's hip. Slowly, she unfists her hand from where it is bunched up in the fabric of Chloe's jacket. It continues to rain on them the rest of the way home.

The dogs shake themselves dry and rub their damp little bodies against the living room carpet while Chloe fusses. Max locks up, sheds herself of her damp clothes and slips into dry pajamas, Chloe's shirt. She towels her hair dry and tosses another to Chloe, setting the soggy pizza boxes down on the coffee table.

"Go get a blanket," Chloe suggests, shivering as she warms herself up. "The one from the bed."

"We'll get pizza on it. The dogs are gonna want to get up here with us."

"I'll wash it," Chloe offers, looking begging, pleading, wanting. Max can never say no to her.

They eat the soggy pizza and watch the X Files on TV, kissing through commercials, shifting and sighing against each other until their limbs warm and melt. After dinner they fuck in the shower, Chloe's nails digging into Max's hips. Chloe always gets this dreamy, lost look during sex; she claims she doesn't care who's in control but always melts in Max's arms, loving being ordered, feeling secure. Max feels her tense, sees that wide blown look in her eyes-- always as if she is surprised by her own pleasure-- and lets her slump against the side of the tub still with the water firing down like bullets.

"Shit, Caulfield," she says as Max holds her up.

They get out and crawl into bed with the thrum of hot water still vibrating on their skin. Max gets up and checks on the dogs, checks on the locks, whirring through the motions.

She has no idea what tomorrow will be like. Whether it wil be a good or a bad or a worse day. She wonders if Chloe will wake up afraid or wake up looking at her like she is the sun. Always, she expects Max to leaves her. _Where would I go?_ Max wants to say, shout, whisper in her ear tenderly while the girl sleeps curled into a ball; she has no idea how to drill this into Chloe, that she's the only one in the world whom Max adores completely and without question. That Max would be just as lost without her.

Searching for peace is like searching for a lighthouse in a stormy sea. One good thought, the thought of Chloe, is what's been pulling her to shore. She clasps her girlfriend's hand, feels the pull of it as is the pull of that vein in her ring finger that leads to her heart.

Lights out, she sleeps.


End file.
